India And United States have one commonalty, Both spend colossal amount on farm subsidies and other incentives. As such, farmers In India should be the happiest one. But ground realities are quite different. Despite enjoying a slew of incentives including tax exemption; subsidies on fertilizes, energy and water for irrigation; low-interest loans; cheap crop insurance; high tariffs to block food imports; and price supports for more than 20 crops. and loan wavers, Indian farmers are a distressed lot and many of then end their life by committing suicide.
As many as, 45 farmers commit suicide each day in India, according to e National Crime Records Bureau . Moreover, out of the total deaths, around 15 per cent suicide victims are women farmers. This grim situation calls for immediate remedial measures. Farmers are the backbone of the economy and , no country can progress if farming community remains economically stressed.
Prime minister, Modi has promised to double farm incomes by 2022. Before, parliament elections, he announced a fresh bonanza for farmers.-raising support prices for the coming harvest, PM also vowed to pay growers 150% of the cost of their inputs, guaranteeing a healthy profit. Let us hope, PM fresh initiatives come to the rescue of distressed farmers.
India is not only the country sustaining massive farm-support plans, United Sates is even far ahead in this regard. US federal government spends more than $26 billion a year on subsidies for farm businesses.
In US new deal era, the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The Government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land. There are nearly 2.16 million farms in the United States as against 118.7 million farmers in India. . However, the number of farm in the U.S. decreased to 2,029,200 in In 2018.
This is because federal govt encourage farmers not to grow crops and pay for their loss. The agricultural price support programs ensure that farmers could always sell their crops for enough to support themselves. The price support program meant that farmers had to incur the expense of plowing their fields, fertilizing, irrigating, spraying, and harvesting them, and then selling their crops to the government, which stored them in silos until they either rotted or were consumed by rodents. So. It is much cheaper just to pay farmers not to grow the crops in the first place. Through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), farmers receive rental payments in exchange for not farming their land – and these contracts can last 10 to 15 years.Last year, US taxpayers had to even fork out over $1.8 billion to pay farmers not to farm their land.
Undoubtedly. paying people not to do work looks be politically awkward. So the government coined the program as an environmental one rather than an income maintenance scheme. As described to the public, it was compensation to farmers for retiring acreage to reduce fertilizer and pesticide runoff into the nation’s water supply.
So far so good. after WTO ( World Trade Organization) came into being in nineties, massive farm-support plans in the United States and India are troubling most of the European countries as farmers here have been raising their voice for farm subsidies like U.S. And India.
Members of World Trade Organization submitted questions to the WTO's quarterly agriculture committee meeting showed on Monday over how US And India farm support plans could double farm income ?
The European Union has asked India to explain how PM Modi proposed to spend 25 trillion rupees ($357.5 billion) on agriculture and rural development, doubling farmers' incomes by 2022 as part of a 100 trillion-rupee, five-year infrastructure splurge.
The WTO has strict rules about the size and nature of payments, and member governments keep a close watch for any competitors who might be cheating. Their questions -- 62 pages for the June 25-26 meeting -- can range from requests for clarification to outright allegations of illegal handouts.
U.S. President Donald Trump made boosting farm incomes a priority. Trump is trying to offset domestic damage from a tariff war with China; PM Modi faces a slowdown in India's agriculture-dominated economy
The United States also questioned India's 5% export subsidy for non-Basmati rice and its growing state buying of wheat at rising prices, despite back-to-back record harvests. The United States and Australia also wanted details of India's new "transport and marketing assistance" for agriculture, which Australia said was an export subsidy that should be phased out.
The United States is also facing enquirers from Australia, Canada, China, the EU, India, New Zealand and Ukraine about Trump's $16 billion "market facilitation package".All these anxieties raise questions over farm subsidies. More subsidies can hamper free trade.